My frame was not hidden from You,

When I was made in secret,

And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.

And in Your book they all were written,

The days fashioned for me,

When as yet there were none of them.

Psalms 139:15-16

Remember, you are standing one step, or about three feet from the Veil to the next Room of Mystery. Just on this side of the Veil, side by side, nearly three feet apart and about twelve inches in front of you are four Golden Pillars. You have to walk past those Pillars in order to enter the next Room. To walk past them is to acknowledge that you understand them and in your understanding you leave them behind you. In fact this is true of every aspect of each piece of furniture, cloth, skin, post or pillar that you have encountered or will encounter. When you leave it behind, you are saying, “I understand” and I will apply this to my life. That is why I am taking some time so help you learn about these Pillars - inherent in each Pillar is a greater understanding of the ways of God.

GOD’S ETERNALITY

There are four central points of God’s Eternal Nature that compliment the Four Pillars of Deity that I must mention at this juncture. God alone is eternal, and uncreated. If He was created then someone or something that created Him would have preceded Him. Then, that someone or something would be greater than God in every way.  It is impossible to create something greater than the one who created it. Thus if God were Created, then there would be a higher God than He. There is one creator who created all things, visible and invisible; things above the Earth, on the Earth, and beneath the Earth.

Angels are everlasting not they are not Eternal - they were created and will live forever. We humans are not eternal, but we do receive everlasting life at Salvation. Everlasting is not the same as Eternal. Eternal means has always existed, exists, and always exists. Everlasting means you will exist forever, from this point forward.

Second, God exists outside of everything, including time. If anything is outside of God then it is greater than Him and He is bound or has boundaries. That, in effect, would take away His omnipresence, because by definition there would be someplace that He is not - where? - on the other side of the boundary. We know from Scripture that all things exist within Him, but all things are not God. Self evident is the fact that from Him all that exists was then created.

Three, if all that exists, exists in God, and nothing is outside of Him, then all time exists within Him as well. Time is a created substance that came into being on the fourth day with the creation of the Sun, Moon, and stars. Prior to that moment there was no time. God has never needed it. Thus all time, simultaneously exists within Him.

Four, if all exists within Him, then He exists outside of creation and inside His creation at the same moment. Remember. there is no place that He is not present. Thus He can be outside of you and within you simultaneously. Yes, there are varying measures of His presence. Just like God can be more intensely present in one church than another, He can be more densely present in one person than another. He can also increase the measure or density of His presence within you, but you will have to ask Him to do that. God will not violate your will, therefore the increase is only accomplished by the infilling of His very Spirit. Again, you will have to ask for this infilling.

I will elaborate more on these Central Points of eternality later, but for now these four points will greatly aid you in understanding the Four Pillars of Deity.

FOUR GOLDEN PILLARS

In the last post I wrote of the first Golden Pillar of Deity, which is Immutability. The reliability and viability of the other three Pillars hinge on Immutability being true. If God is not unchanging, then perhaps He was Omnipotent once upon a time. This leaves the question, If His power shifts or changes, what if He is no longer that powerful?

If God is not Immutable or unchanging then He could have lost some of His knowledge and is no longer Omniscient and may not know what is happening to me. If God is not immutable and has changed, then He may not be present with me right now, or dwell inside me as He said He would. The fact is this, if there are no immutable absolutes in God, then all our faith is in vain.

You see Immutability is very important to our faith - the unshakable knowing that God is the only perfect constant in this universe and beyond is vital to faith. The Truth is that He never has changed and never will change. He wants you to know this.

IMPORTANCE OF THE  FIRST PILLAR

Immutability alone gives us great hope and faith for things to get better when we call on Him. His name, every facet of His name, is always there for you. Nothing about God has ever increased nor decreased. Take a moment and pause to think of what it would be like if the capabilities of God were always changing. What if He is like a weight lifter? When He lifts weights He is stronger, but if He lays of the weights for a month or a year His strength is greatly diminished. How would that affect your relationship with Him or your confidence that He could help you? What if God … . If God is not unchanging then you can ask the question with any number of “what if’s.”

You must grasp this reality - Immutability is very, very important to creation and the Kingdom!

THE SECOND PILLAR

The second Pillar is Omniscience. Omniscience is God’s all knowing nature. It is more than IQ, it is the very state of His existence. He has never nor will ever think of something He has not thought of before. Neither will He know something He has not known before. “All knowing,” really means He is all knowing. If He has forgotten anything, then He is not Omniscient. If He has ever learned anything, then He is not Omniscient. That is why David could write, “And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. There was never a time when David was not in the mind of God - taken one step further, there has never been a time when you weren’t in the mind of God.

God planned that you would be born and live right now. In addition He planned that you would live right where you live. This is precisely what Acts 17:26 says, God “has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, …” If we take this one step further, then God is watching what you are doing, will do, and have done at the same moment. He is then watching your great, great grandchildren as they are doing something because of what you have done … and you won’t even do it until two months from now. This is what God’s definition of, “I AM that I AM” means.

So you see, in God’s Omniscience, you were planned for such a time as this. He designed you, formed you, and allowed circumstances to occur that would shape you into a vey important vessel. You are a vessel that will change the lives of others, and advance His Kingdom in ways that you know nothing about  - yet.

Perhaps this is adding to your knowledge of how to worship and praise this remarkable, supreme, awesome, God that is the only God. I know that grasping this has made prayer so much easier for me.

Blessings,

John Paul

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“Our help is in the name of the LORD,

Who made heaven and earth.”

Psa. 124:8

Before you get too caught up in Heavenly and Eternal things it might be good to take one more look at where you are. You might want to take notice that you are standing on the dirt of this Earth! Every step you have taken in your journey through the Tabernacle has been done with your feet on and in this dust of the Earth. No matter how Holy the moment, intense the event, or beautiful the sight, you have not stood on some finely woven carpet, nor on some beautiful wood or elaborate stonework. Your feet are touching the dust of this Earth.

THE TABERNACLE BUILT ON THE GROUND

That is important to grasp. When your feet are touching the Earth, it helps you to pray, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. It is here, right where you are standing, that Heaven and Earth intersect and they intersect within you. No, I a not telling you to take your shoes off, unless God is telling you to, it is a metaphor - reminding you to walk on Earth and help others even while you re experiencing Heavenly things. This Earth is important to God - perhaps that is why He did not order the ground within the Tabernacle to be covered before you stepped on it.

Before you enter into the fullness of His presence on the other side of this Veil, God wants you to know more about what the “Fullness of His Presence” means. You start with the Four Golden Pillars.

ASPECTS OF DEITY

These four golden Pillars begin to define the realm of the spirit where God’s throne resides - outside of time - and simultaneously deep within you. As you journey deeper into the Sanctuary, or the Mountain of the Lord, you are being prepared for the deeper mystery. It will take the leaving of the rule of your soul to do it and even now that is still difficult, very difficult. I know, I keep saying that - but it must become part of your spirit before you go much further.

THE VEIL, THE SOUL, AND THE SPIRIT

That is why it takes the Word of God that is sharper than any two edged sword to reveal or separate the soul from the spirit or said another way to separate one Room of Mystery from the other. That Word is the Veil, the Veil is the Word; the Veil and the Word are Jesus. That is why John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God … and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” In the crucifixion process, when Jesus’ body was torn and He gave His life for us, the Veil was torn for us at the same time. I’ll write more on the Veil later. However, we have to cover the Four Pillars so you understand the Eternal.

GOD REVEALING HIMSELF TO US

I want to stress one more matter, and I know I have stressed it before … the Tabernacle is more about God revealing Himself to us than us following laws. God is three in one, the Tabernacle is three in one. At God’s command, Moses built what He saw when He peered into Heaven. The Tabernacle and the Garden of Eden are a parallel expressions of God. Heaven is within the existence of God and within Him is the complete fullness of all that exists. Therefore, when we see the Tabernacle we see the manifestation of a reflection of Heaven on Earth. The same was true for the Garden of Eden.

As we understand the ways of the Tabernacle we will understand the ways of God. SELAH

THE FIRST PILLAR

Now for the first Pillar which is the Pillar of Immutability. Immutability applies to each of the other three Pillars - it is the only one to broadly do so. This attribute of God’s deity expresses the unchanging nature of God. God has told us that He does not change in any manner. He has not gained or lost anything - that would mean He changed. He is not a God who used to do anything - if He can no longer do something or if He can now something He once could not do, that would mean He changed. He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

With Immutability we find that God’s Name(s), God’s acts, and God’s Glory are inseparable. For example, He is not a God who is named Jehovah Rapha, yet never heals. That would mean His name is a lie. Thus, every name of God requires a corresponding action. None of the acts of God can be done by man, that’s what gives God Glory - only He can do them. Further, He never diminishes or increases in His ability to do them.

THE GLORY OF GOD

There is no Glory for God if the created can do what the uncreated can do. Inherent in the Glory of God is the supremacy of the uncreated creator to create a means by which He can, through His creation, touch, change, heal, and redeem others in His Creation. Nonetheless it is not the created performing the glorious action, but the Creator. Thus to share in God’s glory would be to claim to be equal to the Creator.

Blessings,

John Paul

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Our Father who is in Heaven Hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom come Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the power of the evil one, for Yours is the Kingdom, Power and Golory forever. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer stated by Jesus in Matthew 6, is a completion of all five foundations of Prayer - Adoration, Devotion, Intercession, Supplication, and Contemplation. However, these five prayer points are not a mantra that is vainly repeated, but an outline of subjects to be considered, weighed, measured, expounded upon and dialogued through with your Heavenly Father with whom you now have access. The atmosphere you are in is now getting pretty charged with the Presence of the Holy Spirit permeating everything in this room - including you.

SUBORDINATING THE SOUL

As you get up from kneeling and breathing your prayer before Him, you are preparing and being prepared to leave the Holy Place and its Dark Night of the Soul; which is what you will do as you exit this room and enter the next. Please remember, you do not want to kill your soul. You merely want it to submit to your spirit. You cannot love the things God loves without the passion of the Soul.

You cannot understand God’s ways without the intelligence of the Soul, and you cannot persevere in your faith without will power found in your Soul. No, the Soul is quit valuable - in the right place. It enables the Body to carry out the desires of God. The soul is one half of what will enter Paradise (Spirit & Soul) because flesh cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Your new body will catch up with you later at the resurrection.

TWO MORE LAYERS

Before you enter the Holy of Holies, you must encounter two more layers of obstacles that will cement your Spiritual life. The first layer is the four Golden Pillars that stand before you, just on this side of the Veil.

They are different from the five pillars you encountered before you entered into this first Room of Mystery, the room you are in now, the Holy Place. The five pillars, you encountered just before you entered into the room where you stand, are the five elements of Grace and those five elements of Grace are:

• Favor, which is God allowing you to do something that you are totally unqualified to do - like build an Ark;
• Patience, which is God giving you time to mature;
• Steadfast Love, which is God giving His Son for the forgiveness of your sins;
• Purpose, which is God having a good plan for your life in spite of your failure; and
• Anointing or Influence, which is God allowing us to touch and change others as He flows through us.

BE ANXIOUS FOR NOTHING

But now, here you stand about three feet in front of the Veil and four Golden Pillars. This is all that separates you from the next Room of Mystery - the Holy of Holies. Your heart is beating a little faster now - but you must not sweat. Interestingly enough heart rates that increase due to fear and anxiety will cause you to sweat, but heart rate increases in anticipation of wonder and AWE do not cause you to sweat … hummmm, which one are you? Unrepentant sin will bread fear, but a contrite heart will breed inner peace.

THE FOUR PILLARS

The four golden pillars you now stand before represent the four attributes of Deity and we will deal much more with them later:

Omniscience or all-knowing,

Omnipotence or all power,

Omnipresence or always present, and

Immutability or unchanging in any way.

In order to understand more of God’s ways and why God chose to place you here on this Earth for such a time as this, you need to understand what these four golden Pillars represent and what they mean to your destiny. This understanding will greatly, and I do mean greatly, aid you in the Holy of Holies where you will soon enter a much more formidable Dark Night of the Spirit. It is the last of the Dark Nights - it is also one that you will feel you have never completely left.

As a reminder, in the Outercourt you traversed through the Dark Night of the Wilderness where God dealt with sin in your life. In the journey through the Holy Place, and the Dark Night of the Soul, God dealt with your ambition and self-sufficiency. Here in this next Room, as you enter the Dark Night of the Spirit, God will deal with your confidence that you can actually do what He has called you to do.

Blessings,

John Paul

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